Empedocles, The Last Airbender

“Water... Earth... Fire... Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony.”

That’s the opening line of Avatar, The Last Airbender but I felt like it was equally appropriate to open the discussion about Empedocles with the same words.

It seems a bit dramatic, but drama was apart of Empedocles’ M.O. “Empedocles was a

philosopher, a medical man, and a truly flamboyant figure” he acted and dressed nobly, and along with the astonishing things he had to say, this all made him a sight to see.

I mean just read his proposition:

“For at one time they grew to be

 only one

 out of many, but at another they grew apart to be many out

 of one:

 fire and water and earth and the immense height of air,

 and deadly Strife apart from them, equal in all directions

 and Love among them, equal in length and breadth.”

Here he proposes the four elements, material and known yet never explained. He, like Parmenides, says they are un-generating. And the opposites, Strife and Love; complete each other.

So then maybe The Last Airbender quote is more relevant then I originally thought. For Empedocles, the order of water, earth, air and, fire living in harmony bound by love mean more than just that. From this, Empedocles constructed a serious and complicated theory of the cosmos and the place of human beings in it.